Call of Cthulhu vs Candela Obscura
Compare Call of Cthulhu and Candela Obscura side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Call of Cthulhu | Candela Obscura | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly, Atmospheric, Roleplay-Heavy, Mystery, Horror, Corruption, Skill-Based | Investigation, Playbook-Driven, Corruption, Atmospheric, Mission-Based, Fiction-First |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d100 equal to or under your skill percentage. Success tiers at half (Hard) and one-fifth (Extreme) of the skill value. Bonus and penalty dice adjust the tens digit. Failed rolls can be pushed for a second attempt at greater risk. | Roll a pool of d6s equal to your action rating (0–3), take the highest result. A 6 is a full success, 4–5 is a mixed success, 1–3 is a miss. Spend Drive points (Nerve, Cunning, or Intuition) to add dice. Gilded actions replace one die with a special gilded die: choosing its result recovers 1 Drive. The GM sets stakes (low, standard, or high) and expectations before each roll. |
| Dice | d100 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Chaosium Fan Material Policy | Darrington Press Community Gaming License |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Chaosium | Darrington Press |
| Year | 2014 | 2023 |
| Best For | Investigation-driven horror where combat is deadly and sanity is fragile. Great for one-shots. | Groups who want atmospheric horror investigation with narrative-first mechanics, where supernatural corruption slowly erodes characters across a series of assignments. |
| Highlights | Tracking Sanity as a depletable score ties mental erosion to the fiction, so confronting cosmic horror mechanically wears characters down. The percentile skills resolve on a d100 roll-under, with Hard and Extreme bands at half and one-fifth of the rating. Bouts of Madness convert failed Sanity checks into temporary phobias, manias, or loss of character control. | Gilded dice create meaningful risk-reward tension on every roll, Drive system elegantly ties character resources to narrative themes, assignment structure gives the GM a clear framework for pacing, marks and scars make supernatural exposure feel consequential |
| Considerations | The chase rules add a detailed positioning subsystem whose complexity outweighs how often it sees use. Character creation allocates points across a long list of skills, a slow first step for new players. In long campaigns the sanity spiral can strip a character of player control as madness accumulates. | No free core rules: only a free quickstart guide is available, setting is tightly bound to the Fairelands world, limited character customization compared to Blades in the Dark, combat is intentionally de-emphasized in favor of investigation and social play |